Dark Knights
by Djinn Slashfen
Summary: In the midst of the Jedi Civil War, a woman journeyed to four planets and gathered the pieces of a map, but it was not the first time she had undertaken that quest. This is the story of that first quest, of the one who followed her, and of her fall.


**Dark Knights**  
**By Djinn**

* * *

Revan was a warrior, as much as any Jedi was, and a pacifist, too, as much as any. These were the sort of paradoxes that made Jedi, for there is no passion, there is serenity, there is no chaos, there is harmony, but humans are not by nature serene or harmonious, and so to be a Jedi, one went against their essential nature. It is the nature of humans to fight for what they believe in, even to die for it. Jedi usually die only for what other people believe in. 

No one thought Revan was an anomaly, no one thought that she was different from the other Jedi. _Every_ Jedi could feel the echoes of Mandalorian slaughter flowing through the Force, and every one of them mourned it. When the Cathar homeworld was razzed, many of the Initiates wept from the horror of it flowing around them, and the masters were terse and tense for days, but no one could have known that was only the beginning. Revan may not have known, either, for visions of the future were not her gift, but Malak, they think it was he who saw darkness to come. 

No one can truly know the future, but there are certain things in it that are unavoidable. It is not a question of free will. Some events will come to pass no matter what choices are made. _This_ is what may be heard, felt, in the Force, in pieces, like low voices from another room. Many now believe that the darkness Malak felt was his own fate, and the fate of his ally, but then, Malak was a Jedi, and so he did not fear for himself, but for the Republic. 

It was not that the Masters did not fear for the Republic, but they knew that the darkness Malak saw did not belong to it. 

The Jedi held themselves away from the war because of the darkness, and Revan and Malak went to war because of it. If the Force is truly as crafty as many believe, perhaps Malak's gift for foresight was given him so he would see this darkness, that in seeing it, he would journey to war, and in going to war, both he and Revan would be consumed by it. In trying to protect their knights from the Dark, the Jedi thrust them into it. 

But if one believes this, one must also believe that the Force has a will, and that the Force wished for Revan and Malak to fall, that in some way it was necessary, and most are not willing to make this concession. 

Whether the Force willed it or not, Revan and Malak did fall. 

And I will tell you how. 

* * *

"What of my General, who who gave the order?" Revan asked, her voice soft, calm, as serene as any Jedi Master, though she had never owned the title, and now never could. 

"She's gone." The Admiral said. "We believe she has returned to Coruscant, to submit herself to the judgements of the council." 

"The fool." Malak muttered. "We did not need their approval to fight this war, and we do not need their forgiveness for having won it." 

"Nevermind, my friend." Revan said, her smile slight. "Forgiveness is not what she seeks. Malachor has wounded many, and she seeks the wisdom of the council because she believes they will comfort her, and fill up her empty places. She will learn soon enough that the council, for all it's talk of how any may be redeemed, has little patience for defiance. They will never forgive her, and they cannot heal her, so there can only be one punishment for her. She will find that her emptiness will rule her, and then she will return to us, for there are no others." 

"And the rest of those who have fought with us?" 

Revan leaned back in her chair, dark eyes half-closed. "I have not forgotten them, Admiral, but their time has not come yet. Just know that those whose loyalty lies with us will be rewarded. Now, leave us." 

Malak stepped to the side of her chair as he departed, and lowered himself to one knee that he might look her in the eye. "Is this it?" He asked her. "We have won, and this is the end?" 

"No." She whispered, and she turned to him, her eyes bright. "This is the end of the war, for the children of Mandalore will not recover, but it is not the end of our journey, my friend. Surely you have heard it ... something calls to us from the darkness. It hungers." 

"I have heard it." Malak admitted, watching the the glassy animation in his friend's eyes. "I fear it, Revan. I do not know how it might be sated." 

"_We_ will feed it, Malak. I do not yet know how, but we will answer its call, for I know of no other way to silence it." 

"But how will we find it?" 

"There are many dark places in the universe," Revan said, "but I know where we might find a path." 

* * *

After the tests, they had walked through the sealed archway to find no great 'Star Forge', but only a map. Still, even though it was nothing but an incomplete star map, they had never felt an artifact so dark. It was then that Malak first felt real fear, for the worship in Revan's eyes was unnatural, as she traced the routes in fascination. 

"I know these planets." She said. "This map ... it can show us the way." 

"It is not complete." Malak said, for it was not. Somehow it seemed as if the most important part of it were gone. 

Revan turned to him, and though the mask had become almost a part of her during the war, it seemed strange when she placed it back over her face now, as if to hide. "We can complete it, if we search. The pieces will be revealed to us. They wish to be found, they wish to bring us closer." 

"The Jedi have hidden this for a reason." Malak said. "This darkness will consume us." 

"Do not fall to that folly again, Malak." Revan said. "The Jedi had their reasons for leaving the Republic to its fate against the Mandalorians, also, but that does not mean those reasons are right." She looked out at him from the mask, faceless and sexless beneath it. "It whispers in my mind, Malak." Revan said, soft, but pained as he had never heard her before. "If by consuming me it will be rendered silent, I am a willing sacrifice. But you, my friend ... it does not call you as it calls me, does it? There is no reason for you to undertake this journey with me." 

He wished to touch her, somehow--perhaps to take her hand, rest his own hand on her cheek, but he could not. "I have followed you this far of my own choice." He said. "If you will have me, I will remain at your side." 

"Even should I fall into this darkness? Even should I ... descend into it willingly?" 

Some people believe that Malak was in love with Revan. Perhaps they believe this because Jedi preach that love is of the Dark, but the Sith also condemn love, and people often say this of any man who follows a woman into folly. Still, one can never be certain that it was not true. 

Malak wondered if they had not both already fallen. "Even then." 

* * *

There was no Czerka when they journeyed to Kashyyyk, only the creatures indigenous to that planet-wide forest, and themselves. They had not brought so much as a droid to travel with them, for the only droid fit for such a journey had been lost to Mandalorian space before the end of the war, and Revan had no time to comission another. Revan told Malak that she needed no other beside her, and Malak devoured the praise, the trust, for when they had been Jedi people would have done anything for a kind word from the Knight prodigy that was Revan, and now he would have all her kind words. 

Pride, like love, like many things people crave and suffer for the lack of, is said to be of the Dark. 

The people--creatures--of Kashyyyk were strong, and sentient, but little more could be said of them. They valued strength but had no true concept of war, not of the sort that Revan had just fought, and therefore she held nothing but contempt for them. She could feel the spectre of something that had once been here, far below her, and she had no doubt they knew of what she spoke, what she sought, but in their xenophobia, they hid it from her. 

Or, they tried to. 

"If you do not take me where I wish to go," Revan said, "I will take myself, and remove any obstacles that fall in my path. Do not make the mistake of thinking that because I carry a lightsaber, I follow the path of the Jedi. The Jedi would not conscience my quest here." 

War had changed Revan, perhaps even more than it had changed Malak. She was still the powerful, charismatic, beautiful woman she had been before, but beneath that beauty she was cold, hard. She had seen more death in the years of the Mandalorian Wars than most people would ever see, and one cannot come away from such things unscarred. She had no patience for those who did not understand that strength and victory were everything. 

They called the deep, dark places of Kashyyyk the Shadowlands, but Revan whispered to Malak as they descended that she felt as if she already dwelled in shadow. If the Force were light, it had blinded her, if it were an ocean, she had drowned in it, and if it were the heartbeat of the galaxy, it had deafened her. 

What she was saying, Malak came to realize, was that her connection to the Force was destroying her, for the whispers that called to her from the darkness beyond the hyperspace routes were slowly driving her into what could only be madness. Malak could hear it as well, as if something very distant was beckoning them closer, but he came to think that it was more than that for his friend. Whatever was out there had seen Revan, and its call was now for her alone. 

They found a great computer, and in that computer's memory was a map. It opened for Revan easily, as if she had been correct--these pieces did wish to be found. 

"I have had a preminition," she said, as she ran her hands across the ancient machine, "that I will seek this knowledge a second time. That I will return here as myself, and yet not myself." 

"I do not understand." Malak said to her, but in truth, he had understood her less and less since they had left the Jedi behind them, so long ago now. There had been a time when they were so close, they could almost read each other's thoughts. 

"I have seen myself return here as a Revan who knows nothing of war, of horror, or of sacrifice." She said further. "I do not know what it means, but such a person ... could not truly be me, could she?" 

Malak paused, thoughtfully, for he had ever been the scholar, the thinker, between the two of them. "People may change a great deal, over time." 

"Such a person as I was, a pawn of the council, should not be let to have this knowledge." Revan said with conviction. "But ... I can never truly forget war, or how it is fought, I am certain. I will devise a test." She whispered, thoughtfully, to herself. "Yes ... something to ensure that even if I somehow return here changed, I still know of war. That I still understand that sentients are weak, and life less valuable than those vaunted Jedi would have us believe." 

This Malak understood--sometimes Revan said things so curiously dark they disturbed even him, but these were the words of a General, of one who knows that you cannot save everyone, or even most, and that life can and sometimes should be bartered. Jedi are fine strategists, but one would hard pressed to find a true General that had not touched darkness. No one who is purely of the light can risk, or even sacrifice, the lives of others. 

* * *

Malak could not imagine Tatooine in a time before it had been the barren wastelend that lay before them, but Revan could--she said that if you were very still, you could still feel in the Force the echoes of a great cataclysm that had destroyed the planet's life. This was familiar now, hearing her speak this way, because Revan heard echoes of the past, and Malak saw visions of the future, and neither of them seemed to stay very long in the present. 

The absense of lush, green life was not the absensce of the force, and when they escaped the din of Mos Eisley, they could feel it curling around them, as if welcoming them, and leading them. That was when Malak fisrt realized how true Revan's words had been, weeks ago on Dantooine. These pieces, these maps, wished to be found. 

Revan had taken off her mask once they were away from the eyes of the city, thrown back her hood, too. Her hair was plastered to her face, darkened with sweat, and she smiled at Malak with a strange innocence, the expression of one who had never destroyed her enemies with something like glee. 

"There are place like this on my homeworld." She told him. "I only know them from pictures, of course. Do you think they feel like this, hot, dry, and alive with the Force?" 

"Perhaps." Malak assented. "Perhaps we should journey there, and see." 

Revan laughed, lightly, and shook her head. "I was born there, true, but I have no nostalgia or longing for a place I have never known. Surely it is the same for you. Do you even recall your home, your parents?" 

"I needed no mother or father." Malak said with conviction. 

Revan smiled. "Nor I, my friend." 

The map was buried in the sands, covered for centuries, perhaps millenia. Even so, it seemed as if it raised itself to Revan's hands as she dug it out, the sand clinging to their fingers, for the Force that this map radiated made any other form of excavation impossible. They stripped to the barest of undergarments and burrowed into the sand like animals, and Malak could not recall the last time he had seen Revan so attired. In her robes and mask she was strangely stoic, sexless, and it was easy to forget that she was a woman at all. 

Three Tuskens took exception their digging. Malak killed two of them quickly, efficiently, and Revan sundered the arm from a third and sent him back to his people as a warning. They had no time to be disturbed in this. Though it sometimes felt as if they were on some sort of grand, romantic quest, they truth was that they were still at war, at least to their own minds. Malak sometimes worried that Revan's quest for this thing, this Star Forge, was becoming more to her than the war she had sworn her life to. He wondered if that which called to Revan meant more to her than the Republic. 

It took three days for Revan to burrow out the cave, but she would not be swayed from it, nor would she let Malak assist her. For three days she sat in meditation in the middle of the Dune Sea and squeezed together the sand, grain by grain, until she had formed a cave large enough to tempt a dragon, and at the back, they placed the map, dragging it there by brute strength, for the Force refused to touch it. They nearly collapsed when they had done, panting from the heat and the exhaustion, leaning against each other as if they could not stand otherwise. 

It was then that Revan slipped her small hand into his much larger one and looked up at him with those deceptively innocent eyes. "Tell me you believe in me." She whispered. 

He could not have done otherwise. "I believe in you." 

"Tell me that what we are seeking is worth this." 

"It will be worth this." 

She squeezed his hand, hard enough that when he looked, later, he would find this half-moon shaped wounds in his palm from her fingernails. "Tell me that you love me." She demanded. 

Malak squeezed back, hard enough that when he looked later, he would see bruises across her knuckles in the shape of his fingers. "You are an evil woman," he whispered, and looked away without letting go, "to ask such a thing of me." 

She smiled, and the sincerity in it was painful. "You were humoring me, anyway." She replied. "I just wanted to know, for a moment, what it felt like to have someone love me. I don't think that is so very wicked." 

* * *

Years later, Manaan would adopt an official policy of playing both sides against the middle, but it was not so in this war. Even the Selkath could see that there was no benefit to them in supporting the clans of Mandalore. This is perhaps why Revan was known on Manaan, not by sight or by voice but by reputation. This was a time, not long after Malachor, when Revan was the hero of the Republic, when she had saved the entire civilized galaxy from ruin. Though official belief had her still at the head of her fleet, chasing down the last remnants of the Mandalorians, years later people would claim to have seen her and her companion on several planets, and Manaan was only one of them. 

There was no research station, no kolto mining station at the Hrakert Rift then--there was only the rift itself, leaking kolto into the oceans like blood from a wound in the planet. Revan told Malak that the rift had been made by the same cataclysm that brought water up from under the surface of the earth, that 'wound' was the perfect term for what it was. With every drop of life-giving kolto, Manaan was bleeding to death. 

Malak could not see the past where the earth had opened up to release the kolto, as Revan did, but he could see a future where the wound scabbed over and the kolto dried up entirely. When he said this to Revan, she laughed. 

"It does not surprise me." She replied. "Sentients always believe that such things will last forever, and so they consume them as fast as they are able to. I hope I live to see Manaan run dry." 

They had no ship of their own to descend into the ocean's depths, and this was one endeavor the Force was not sufficient, but they were the Generals of the Republic, and all they needed do was ask. It was nearly an hour's descent into the freezing blackness of the ocean, with the two of them pressed together in that flimsy submersible--it shook every time a firaxa swam to close. The light set in the bow was the only illumination, but once they reached the floor, they could feel the darkness of what the sought, as if it were speaking to them. 

Revan would not let Malak go to find it--he could not call or dismiss the firaxa sharks through pure force of will, and he could not swirl the water around him to protect him, should that fail. He could not describe how it felt to let her go out into the inky darkness of the oceans alone, except that the feeling was familiar. She had always been the stronger, the more capable, of the two of them. He remembered watching her command a fleet, watching her choose impassively from her bridge which ships would win and which would be sacrificed, remembered watching her slaughter her way through the jungles of Dxun, slain enemies and allies alike falling around her. He was always there, a step behind, following her into these dangers, but somehow he was never quite at her side. 

He remembers her tight grip on his forearm when they realized that they had arrived too late, that Malachor V had already been destroyed while they fought Mandalorian scouts only a few sectors away. He remembers finding her waiting when his ship had touched down on Dxun for that first battle, her smile when she said that no other could fight with her as he did. He remembers standing with her before the Senate, as they pledged their lives to this war. There had been others at all of these places, but he was the only one who had been at _all_ of them, with her, and surely, that meant something. 

When Revan crawled out of the water with the copied map clutched in her hands she threw her arms around him, smelling like the slightly stale air of her environmental suit, and when Malak clutched back at her, desperately, he did not know how he would ever find the strength to let go again. If she had asked him again, in that moment, to say he loved her, he did not know how he would have replied. 

* * *

"Korriban?" Malak repeated. "Surely not, Revan." 

"It is the last place left to go." She said, calmly, reasonably. "The map is not yet complete. We do not know where it leads." 

"But _Korriban_, Revan!" Malak said. 

"Do you think that Korriban is any darker than the Shadowlands? Than the forgotten temple of the Builders on Dantooine? Do you think that by journeying there, we will fall any farther than we already have?" She asked. "There is nothing we have to fear from Korriban, Malak." She said, when he did not reply. "It is no Malachor, where the darkness swallows you entirely. The Sith at Korriban are foolish children, embittered by the Jedi, without real purpose. If anything, I pity them, for they know nothing of war, or of horror, but both lie in their future." 

"What do you know of the future?" Malak asked, and Revan laughed. 

"Well, I cannot see it as you can, my friend," she replied, "but I can create it, can't I?" 

"You wish to start another war?" Malak said, vaguely horrified. 

"Wish? No ... but I do not wish the Rebublic to stagnate, either. We went to war to save the Republic, didn't we?" Revan said. "It is not in me to leave a task half-finished. The Republic never recovered from Exar Kun's war, and that is why it was so easy for the Mandalorians to attack. Will they not be more weakened after this conflict? Will they not be even more reluctant to enter into the ineviable next? We cannot let them do away with our armies, their own defense ... and if we must use force to make this clear ... in the end, is it not all for their good?" 

"It is not our duty to decide what is best." Malak replied. "Revan, we are Jedi." 

"Those who follow us may call us this," Revan allowed, "but you know as well as I that the council has turned away from us. We are no longer Jedi. Now, we are simple soldiers. The path we chose to walk has taken us away from what we were--away from the Code, and the trappings of the order." 

"To think that you know what is best for the galaxy is hubris, Revan." Malak warned. 

Revan turned to him with a sneer. The expression was alien on her face--even in the heat of battle she had always worn that meaningless, serene mask Jedi are taught. Revan was not just a talented swordsman, or a skilled Force-user, she had been held up as the model of what all Jedi should be. It is always those who have been raised the highest, who have the farthest to fall. 

"And who _does_ know what is best for the galaxy, _Knight Malak_? The Senate, that debates endlessly and accomplishes nothing? The Jedi Council, who will not act unless they already know the outcome? The Madalorians, who seek to conquer without knowledge of how to rule? Or is it those who have given up everything--their families, their futures, even their lives--to see that the Republic was not destroyed? Who is _truly_ arrogant? I do not think it is _me_. I did not become a leader because I craved power, you know this, Malak. I became a leader because a leader was needed. Because it was asked of me. Should I have refused those who asked for my aid?" 

"We have done what we set out to do, haven't we?" Malak pleaded. "We have defeated the Mandalorians. We have made it so that it will be generations before they can truly rise again. Isn't it enough?" 

Revan was silent for a long moment, her face closed, expressionless, as she looked out over the stars around them. "You have told me that you dreamed of the future. That you saw darkness. The future is not my gift, my friend, you know that, but this war has given me a rapport with darkness, and this evil ... it may be a quiet, insidious thing to you, but it screams in my mind. It will take an army to defeat it, to silence it ... and I have an army beneath me." 

"Revan ... " Malak breathed. 

"Have you ever thought that perhaps the only one who could fight true darkness is one who understands it? That one must sacrifice the Light in order to protect it?" She slowly pulled her hood up over her head, placed her mask over her face. Her voice sounded hollow from behind it, like one already long dead. "It is dangerous to bring light into such dark places, Malak. There are places in the universe into which you cannot bring that which you love." 

"Love?" Malak parroted, dumbly, and Revan turned away from him, for a moment, before turning back with the cool, clear voice of a General giving her orders. 

"But Korriban is not such a place, and it _is_ where we must go." 

* * *

They were greeted by an archaeologist, a smarmy, simpering man with yellowed teeth and no hair. He practically fell over himself to ensure that he was their guide, that he was the one to take them through the so-called 'Valley of the Sith Lords'. Revan humored him, but she did not so much as throw back her hood, let alone bare her face to him, as if she did not think him worthy to look on her. 

"Uln. Jorak Uln." He'd introduced himself, eagerly, when Malak had finally been oblidged to ask. "I have been studying the tombs for some time, but my assistants keep disappearing inside--I suspect that he ancient Sith protected their final resting places in some manner, but I have not quite discovered why." 

"You do not go in yourself?" Revan asked him, her voice impassive. 

"Well, no." He admitted. "My knowledge of the Sith is too valuable to risk. If I were to die, all my knowledge--" 

"You are saying," Revan said, a hint of amusement coloring her tone, "that you fear the Sith might die with you? You think you are that important, Master Uln?" She muttered, mostly to Malak, "He is certainly as arrogant as a Sith." 

"We are seeking a particular artifact, Uln." Malak said. "You would recall this, I believe. A star map." 

Uln frowned. "I do believe I would recall such a thing. I have not seen it." 

"And which tombs have you actually ventured inside, Master Uln?" Revan asked, and Malak could hear the contempt in her voice, though it seemed to go over the achaeologist's head. 

"Well ... only Tulak Hord's, truthfully." He admitted. "If you are interested, I have done some wonderful research on--" 

Revan held up a hand to silence him, and he faltered to a stop. "Our only interest is the map." She said, and the softness of her voice could not have been mistaken for kindness. "If you have not found it, we will locate it ourselves. Please do not interrupt us." 

"O-of course, My Lady ... er, that is, General Revan ..." 

Revan turned away from him, moved away, trusting Malak to follow. "Will it discomfit you," she asked Malak softly, "to walk the tombs, and disturb the dead? The spirits of the dead Sith are strong here, but they have no power to influence us, not after so long a sleep." 

Malak gave her a long look. "If I said that it would, would it matter to you?" 

Revan was silent for a long moment, and then she reached out and rested one gloved hand on his forearm. "_You_ matter to me, my friend. I do not wish to walk in places where you cannot follow, but ... I hope that you understand why I must do this, and will aid me in my endeavor. If you don't, I do not know what I will do." 

"Of course, I will give you any help I can." Malak said, reflexively, fervently, and it wasn't until much later that he realized that she had not really answered him. 

There were four tombs in the valley, but Revan knew it was not in the first--they had not needed to enter it, the darkness from that tomb was too young, not ancient and creeping, like the darkness of the maps. The second tomb was so overwhelmed by darkness, though, that even Revan could not make sense of it, and so they entered to search. 

There were some machines, but no power, and they walked by unchallenged. They found the sarcophogus, sealed closed, but there was no map, and so they turned to leave. 

_Why have you disturbed my rest?_

Malak started, perhaps even took a step back, for the spectre was surprisingly whole, looking like a man dressing in black standing in the door, except that one could see the hallways behind him, could see _through_ him. Revan was silent, but she still wore the mask, and so Malak could not gague her reaction. After a moment, she tucked her arms into her sleeves and stepped forward, bowing to him in greeting. 

"Pardon us, we are sure, my lord, it was not our intent or purpose to disturb you." 

_Have you come ... to claim my blade?_

"Your blade?" Revan repeated, and then, to Malak's surprise, she threw back her hood, and pulled off her mask. "Forgive me, Lord Pall, I did not know you! Nor did any know that you sword was entombed with you!" 

_It ... is not my blade, that you seek?_

"I assure you," Revan told him, "I have no interest in the sword the destroyed you." 

_... no,_ the spectre said after a pause. _I can see it about you, now. You seek a different destruction._

"How did your sword destroy you?" Malak asked, because he now recalled the story of Ajunta Pall, and he had to ask. 

"Do not be foolish. It was not the sword itself, was it, Lord Pall?" Revan answered for him. "It was the lust for the sword, the desire your enemies--and allies--had to make it theirs. They thought it was the source of your strength." 

_You ... are correct._

"But, Lord Pall, your strength, and your destruction ... both came from you alone." 

_No._ The spectre moaned. _No, the blade is what destroyed me, the blade ..._

Revan pulled up her hood. "You still believe this, even so long after your own demise ... perhaps that is what keeps you here, Lord Pall. However, I am no spectre, I have no ties to your sword, or your tomb, and our quest lies elsewhere. Rest in peace, if you can." 

Malak followed her, but he was disturbed. "Should we not have tried to bring him some peace?" 

"Redemption, you mean?" Revan replied. "How long has he held his beliefs? They have sustained him past death. Even if I could turn him, change him, why should I seduce him into such a betrayal? What gives me the right to destroy all that he is?" 

"But it is the right thing to do." Malak argued. 

Revan turned to him with an ironic smile. "To think that you know what is right for the universe is hubris, Malak." She said, echoing his own words to her, before she placed her mask back over her face, and they stepped out of the tomb onto Korriban's dead surface once more. 

They found the map in Ragnos' tomb. The ancient Lord must have felt the darkness that streamed off it, but he had not understood it, not in the way that Revan did. Malak watched as she found the last clue, that last piece of the map, the puzzle, and there, right before them, the map came together. He could not see the rapture on Revan's face as she assembled it, but he could _feel_ it, bursting out from her, and that was almost worse. In that moment, as Revan crouched before the map, Malak feared her. 

"We have it." Revan breathed. "I was not certain we could-- but we _have_ it! It is all here, Malak." 

"Revan--" 

"Hurry." She rose, dust from the tomb stuck to her robe where she had knelt to assemble the map. "We have no time to waste. Let us go, my friend. This darkness waits for us--let us confront it." 

And so they went, to the Unknown Regions, and to the Nameless World. 

* * *

The words of the Rakatan meant nothing to Malak. Revan tore the language from their minds, but Malak lacked Revan's strength--to him, their thoughts were slippery, strangely formed, and he could not grasp hold of them long enough to decipher meaning. As always, it fell to Revan to lead, and him, to follow. He followed her into the great temple, and from there, to the Star Forge. They fought their way through the droids that the Forge itself sent to confront them, back-to-back, and Malak thought of Dxun with a strange sort of fondness. They fought their way all the way to the highest room, where say a great map of the galaxy, of parts of it that had been unknown for centuries. 

"This is wrong." Revan said, as she stared at that map. "This is ... this is all wrong!" 

"What is it?" Malak demanded, and Revan turned to him. 

Her hood had been torn from her head and her mask had been cracked down the center, and so been discarded. Her expression was wild, her eyes wide. "This is not the darkness we have been searching for! This is not that which calls to me! This place is nothing--we have have been led astray! That darkness lies out _there_, somewhere, growing stronger as we waste our time here!" 

Malak did not understand, because he could feel the darkness here. Never, _never_ had he been somewhere so dark, before, and it felt almost as if it were smothering him. He did not understand how there could be something darker still lurking somewhere beyond this. 

He followed Revan to the highest platform, where they could look out at the stars, and Revan stood there, at the window, and spoke to him without turning. 

"We were led here for a reason, I think, Malak." She said. "This place ... it creates. The darkness that lies out there, waiting for me ... I knew I woudl need an army to fight it, the Republic's army, but with this ... can't you see it?" She placed one hand up flat against the glass, as if touching something that he could not see. "An endless fleet of warships, enough to destroy anything that could threaten us, and the army we already command within them. All we need do first is destroy the Republic. Only then can we save it ... and ourselves." 

"This place is darkness, Revan." Malak said. "It is twisting your thoughts, your desires. Even if it is not the same darkness you fear, it cannot be allowed to remain. It must be destroyed." 

"It is a tool." Revan said. "I will use it." 

"Do not do this, my friend." Malak pleaded. "This is not you. We fought to _save_ the Republic." 

"We _will_ save it." Revan said, without turning. "We will save its people, and its worlds, and reunite them, strengthen them, under me. I will rule them all." 

At that, and Malak's world fell from under him. How long, he wondered. How long had she been changing, been falling, with him too devoted, too enamored of her to notice? How long had he allowed her, even helped her, to walk this path? He had seen the darkness in her, but he had told himself that it was an innevitable relic of war. 

His lightsabre glowed dimly as he lit it, hissing softly. "I cannot stand by and allow this, Revan." 

She turned to him then, her smile dangerous, like the glint of a knife-blade in the dark. For the first time he noticed that her brown eyes were tinted yellow. "Do you really wish to fight me, my old, dear friend?" She asked, her voice mocking. "In all our years, you have never once bested me, at anything. Do you really think you can defeat me here, now?" 

"You have fallen to the dark side, Revan." Malak accused. 

"Fall? You are wrong." Revan replied. "You have been with me through all this, Malak. You were my witness. Everything that I have done, I have chosen of my own will. I _chose_ this path." She ignited her sabres, one in each hand, and faced him across the long catwalk. "Choose yours. _Now_." 

"You know what my answer must be." He said. 

Revan's eyes burned into his. "You once promised that you would follow me, even should I fall into darkness. Even should I descend willingly into it." 

Malak remembers those words, vividly--he even remembers how fervently he had meant them, when he had spoken them, but ... "I knew nothing of true darkness when I promised that." 

"This is the way of the Jedi," Revan said, "to promise aid, and then excuse why it is not given. They did it to the Republic. You are doing it to me." 

Malak's stomach churned. "I do not wish to fight you." 

"Then do what you have always done." Revan replied. "_Follow_ me." 

Malak shook his head, sharply. "I cannot." 

They fought, across the catwalk, across the large room, but there was little doubt as to who the victor would be. In the center of the room their sabres locked together and they looked across the blades at each other. That was when Revan tossed aside one of her blades, negligently, and reached across to grasp him by the jaw, turning his face so that he met her eyes. 

"You cannot defeat me." She said, and then the force swirled around her, between them, and threw him across the floor. 

The bottom half of his jaw tore off in Revan's hand, and she tossed it away like refuse as she crossed the floor to stand over him. His blood pooled under him, and his vision blurred, until all he saw was the bright blur of her lightsabre, and the black mass of her robes. 

"Your defeat is complete." She said, coolly. "You stood against me for the ideals of the Jedi, but we are _not_ Jedi. You know that the Jedi would never take you back now, not after falling so far. They would fear you." She crouched down and fisted her hand in his collar, lifting him up of the ground just enough so that she could look right into his pain-clouded eyes. The mess of blood and torn flesh where his jaw had been did not seem to affect her at all. "You have followed me this far because you care for me, but I have no use for your affection. Follow me because I am greater than you. Bow before me, now, and I will be your Master." 

Malak had known Revan since they were children. She had been his closest friend, his most trusted ally. He had followed her to war, and he had followed her here, and as he lay there on the cold floor of the Star Forge, bleeding to death, he knew with a horrible certainty that it had always been his fate to follow her into darkness. He felt the fear he had felt as they fought swell inside him, felt it feed on the darkness around him, until it blossomed into hate--yes, he hated Revan, because she had made him love her, made him follow her, made him want to do anything to please her, and made him fall. If he were weak, it was _she_ who made him so ... and therefore, it was she who could make him strong, again. 

There was little strength left in him, but he pulled his knees under him, his forehead pressed to the ground, and bowed to her, before he fell unconscious. 

Revan was there when he awoke, standing over him, and he wondered now how he had not _seen_ what she was becoming on her face. He had thought her beautiful, once, but now he saw that she was twisted, hideous, not someone to be loved or admired at all. Only someone to be obeyed. 

"Welcome back, Lord Malak." Revan said, her voice impassive, not at all as it had been when she had stood beside his bed in the field hospital on Ares III. Then, she had held his hand, tightly, as if his burns had pained her as well, and her eyes had been damp, though she was too strong of a woman to cry. Now, her yellow eyes narowed in impatientience. "Speak." 

It was a strange sensation, for he had no mouth to speak the words, no lips to form them and no tongue to articulate them, but the words came nonetheless, slightly metallic, electronic, but recognizable as his own voice. "I am well," he said, "my Master." 

* * *

All this, Malak remembered, as he stood on the Star Forge's observation deck, watching his fleet fight all around him. He had _earned_ this, he had taken it from his Master, he had _destroyed_ his Master, even though she still lived. All this, and the rule of the Republic, that was his right. _His_. She had, in the end, been weak, distracted by the darkness that still called to her, even then. It had been a simple thing, to betray her. 

He turned at the footsteps behind him. 

"As it began," he murmured, "so shall it end, _my Master_." 


End file.
